Chuchos callejeros

Stray dogs with a red plastic tag in one ear
Have been licensed
By the city to be safe and allowed to live in the street,
So they wander around, or more likely just lie there,
Healthy, checked by a city vet, without a care.
They're red-tagged Turks and they're an elite.
You walk past them in the street.
They're bums, they're the homeless, not educated.
It's complicated, but they're regulated.
It isn't complicated.
The red tag is their fez.
That's what the republic Atatürk founded says.

From the poem Istanbul by Frederick Seidel.